


The Roots and Windows of my Heart

by TheLongDefeat



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Post-Episodes, the bits in between
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-15 13:32:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16934172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLongDefeat/pseuds/TheLongDefeat
Summary: A series that will follow the Doctor and Rose, from the seed of their meeting to the bloom of their parting. Canon-compliant. Post-eps and interludes - the seams in between the squares of the quilt of their love, exploring what falling in love might feel like for a 900 year old alien and a 19 year old girl.





	1. Rose/The End of the World

**Author's Note:**

> I have loved the Doctor and Rose right from the moment I saw them on screen, in no small part because I was fascinated by their differences. There is something mysterious and enthralling about a brilliant god-like alien falling in love with an ordinary earth girl. Here is my take on what that process would have felt like, doing my best to stay true to the gravity and depth of the Doctor.
> 
> I have eight or nine chapters/pieces written; I will be adding them every week or so.

She tries not to watch him as she eats her chips, tries not to but mostly fails - there’s something about him, some kind of magnetic pull around his body and she finds it very difficult to look at anything but him when he is nearby. She studies his face, now calm; his broad shoulders, boxy with the sharp corners of the leather jacket. She watches his throat move as he swallows, and she reflects that he seems to eat just like any human man. 

 

“Rose,” he says, folding another chip into his mouth and casting about for the vinegar, “you’re staring.”

 

“Sorry,” she mumbles, her cheeks flaming. Rose sighs and pokes at her own potatoes. “Just…”

 

He is looking at her: she can’t see it because she refuses to look, but she feels it. “Yes?” he prompts, quite patronizing.

 

“Why me?” she says, pushing her chips away and meeting his eye. “Why did you ask me to come with you?”

 

He regards her steadily for a few minutes, his pale eyes flickering over her face as if he is trying to divine some secret meaning behind her words. “You’re clever, and you’re very brave,” he says at last, authoritatively. Rose flushes with pleasure at the compliment, and she reflects that she finds him very easy to trust. “I’ve been traveling alone for a long time, and… it was time I bring somebody else on board. Gives me perspective.”

 

“Right,” she says. She blows out a long breath. “You’re so strange, Doctor.” He blinks, apparently unfazed by her assessment. “I just mean, you’re a stranger, yeah? A complete stranger. But I feel like I trust you… like I’d trust you with my life. It’s sort of mad, when I think about it.”

 

Something moves quicksilver across his face and she can’t decipher it, but then he is smiling at her. “Quite mad, Rose Tyler. It’s a mad old world out there. And it’s dangerous, going round with me. I won’t lie to you about that. But I’ll also promise you I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe.” He is looking at her intently, his blue eyes radiating warm sincerity. 

 

Rose can’t help but smile at him. “I believe you,” she says, and then laughs a little. “Dunno  _ why _ , but I believe you, Doctor.”

 

The Doctor’s smile stretches wide, and he seems to glow with it. 


	2. The Unquiet Dead

The Doctor sits up with Rose late into the night. 

Well. Night for her, anyway; he had adjusted the TARDIS’ day/night cycle to reflect the natural circadian rhythm of a late adolescent human and calibrated it to England’s time zone. He was hopeful that these small efforts towards her comfort might encourage her to stay on with him a little longer - he was finding that he was enjoying her company more than he thought he might.

He has been lonely, it seems. 

The girl is kicking her feet back and forth, leaning against the railing of the bridge that they are sitting upon. It is one of the rooms in the TARDIS that he uses rarely: a lake with a small wooden bridge stretching from shore to shore. 

She looks… young. 

“Rose,” the Doctor says, cycling rapidly through potential sentence structures that would effectively balance sincerity with an appropriate level of distance and calm detachment, “I’m sorry that I discounted your warnings today.”

The girl’s feet stop moving. She turns her head and stares at him - stares at him. If he were any less than he is, the Doctor would have wilted beneath such scrutiny. “You didn’t think I knew what I was talking about,” she says, and there is no hope of arguing with her tone of calm finality. “You thought I was just talkin’ out my arse, hung up on my 21st century morality or whatever. But you were wrong, and your mistake cost Gwyneth her life.”

The Doctor feels a hot surge of remorse and anguished shame rise in him, deeper and more powerful than an ocean wave; he sits still and upright and motionless as it crests and breaks over his body. His fingers tremble, but she can’t see them. “I know, Rose.”

Rose rests the tip of her tongue against her lip, her eyes moving up and down his face. He cannot imagine what she sees there. “But I see why,” she says at length, and the Doctor feels his air coming short, feels like she is holding her hand around his throat and only letting little whistling gasps get through, squeezing out his mercy or his death word by word. “You thought that these people… these Gelth… were victims of that war. The one that destroyed your people. And you wanted to save them, like you couldn’t save your people. You were willing to do whatever it took to save them.” Rose nods, looking back down over the still waters of the lake. “I get that. I’d do the same, if I were you. You weren’t being selfish - you were only trying to help.”

Rose has been awake for twenty hours. The Doctor can see the exhaustion weighing against her eyelids, paling the skin of her cheeks. The Doctor perceives the tired forgiveness that is unfolding without reservation from her, in the angle of her shoulders, in the patient line of her mouth. He wants to drink her absolution like water in a desert. His want is so much - it rises up in his throat like vomit, making his eyes blur, making his blood howl in his ears. 

The Doctor looks down at the lake. “Rose,” he says, and his voice is creaking like the old musty boards beneath them, “Rose, I…”

He feels her hand on top of his - small, hot, a little wet. “I know, Doctor,” she says.

And he believes her. For the first time in a long time, he believes.


	3. Aliens of London/World War 3

The Doctor, apparently noticing the click of the camera button, wheels around on his heel with a ferocious glower. “Oi!” he calls sternly at her, his brows bunching together irritably, “none of that!”

Rose grins, pulling the polaroid from the film slot and shaking it excitedly. She watches with joyful wonder as the Doctor slowly materializes into her hands, small and yet not, his lanky self stooped over the basket of squawling baby alien-cattle for sale. “I need one of your face,” she says. The Doctor frowns and ignores her, stomping off the next stall.

Hours later, Rose inspects her growing collection of polaroid photographs. There is one from a dinner they attended at the French royal court, one from the planet of flowers, one from the three-mile-high hotel: not of the incredible, dizzying view, but instead of the Doctor sprawled on the hotel bed, sonic between his teeth, pulling apart the touchscreen that they were supposed to use to order their meals. Rose has a photo of her neighborhood on the Estate just after the Slitheen landed, WELCOME HOME banners hanging from the patio railings.

And finally, her hard won work of today: Rose settles her fingers on the edges of the photograph, feeling herself smiling, feeling heat rising in her cheeks. It is of nothing exotic, just the console room of the TARDIS; it is of no one strange, just the Doctor. He is leaning on one of the coral struts, half-smiling, and he is looking just above the camera.

Looking at her.

Rose notices the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, notices his dopey ears, the parentheses that frame his grinning mouth. He is wearing only his jumper and denims, no boots, no jacket, not even socks. His bare feet are visible, and Rose notices his long pale toes.

Rose wonders if her cheap 21st century polaroid has been altered in some way, infected with Vortex energy - perhaps the Doctor has tinkered with it when her back was turned -

Was it really her that he could have been looking at with such pure and joyful love? 

“That had better not end up taped on Jackie’s fridge.”

Rose jumps in shock, sending a few photos flying. Behind her, the Doctor laughs, and Rose turns to see him stooping to pick them up. “What’re you doing sneaking up on me like that? Took ten years off my life, you did!”

The Doctor’s smile flashes strangely, like ocean waters caught in sunlight. Rose blinks and the strangeness is gone, replaced with his usual genial glee. “Can’t believe you caught me without my socks on.”

Rose smiles down at the photo. “It’s such a good one of you. You look so… happy.”

The Doctor hums noncommittally, placing the other fallen photographs back on her desk. “I’ll have to start surprising you with photos at unexpected moments, see how you like it.”

Rose leans backwards, not looking, trusting the Doctor will be there. Her back meets his chest, and she rests her head on his shoulder. “I never thought I could be this happy.”

The Doctor speaks no words in response but they remain leaning together for a long while, not holding one another, swaying very slightly with the circular humming of the TARDIS.


	4. Interlude I

If you asked her why she loved him, what  _ about _ him she loved, she could give you many answers - but this would be her favorite.

 

“He started to get really angry with me, out of nowhere,” she explains, her fingers tripping along the smooth surface of the tile they are stretched out upon. They are in the Games Room, draped atop an enormous checkerboard floor. “Jimmy was so sure I was cheating on him. So sure I was lying. It got to where sometimes  _ I  _ wondered if I was lying. He would scream, break things against the walls. Slap me. Make me have sex with him, when I had said I didn’t want to.”

 

She has spoken these words before - to her mother, who sobbed and sobbed; to Mickey, who was silent, rigid as a corpse. To Shareen. To the therapist she met with once, and never again. And each time she speaks them it feels the same: the words are empty, somehow; colorless, and she feels none of their pain, but she finds that her body remembers what her mind does not, and she begins to shiver. 

 

The Doctor drapes his jacket around her shoulders, and does not tell her to keep going.

 

“Thanks,” she says, not looking at him. She is studying the chess pieces that stand as high as a toddler to her left, crowded by the edge of the checkerboard, all mixed together and out of sort. “It wasn’t as bad as it sounds, really. I mean you just get used to it. He didn’t want to hurt me badly, he didn’t want to kill me. He was just… broken. Something in him was twisted up and he couldn’t get it untwisted. But it was a hard time. For a long time I was angry. Now when I think of him I just feel sad.” She looks up at the Doctor, and he is not what she’s expecting - his face is not blank, and his eyes are not wet, and his mouth is a not a rictor of paternalistic rage - he is looking at her, calmly, carefully, looking at her like he will need to remember what she says now for the rest of his life, looking at her like she is telling the most important story in the universe.

 

Rose begins to cry. She remembers her mother, hoping between rattling breaths that Rose would forget this awful time and never think of it again, or Mickey, howling that he would’ve got Jimmy if she’d only told him sooner, he really would’ve got him. Rose had known then that whatever her friends and family were giving her wasn’t what she needed, but she hadn’t known she needed this - this space, this silence, this man who knew how to  _ listen _ . 

 

“Thank you, Doctor,” Rose says, her voice hoarse with tears. The Doctor smiles, leans forward, covers her hands with his.

  
“Thank  _ you _ , Rose,” he says. “Thank  _ you _ .” 


	5. Dalek

Rose finds him, as she always seems to.

 

He is tucked away in a corner of the meditation palace, not meditating. His long legs are bent out in front of him, his back against the wall, and he’s staring into the revolving orb that is casting strange shadows along the walls. She is loud and clumsy in the quiet space, even with her bare feet on the carpeted floor. 

 

“Doctor,” she calls, ducking under a lantern. 

 

The Doctor acknowledges her with a glance. “Thought you’d be settling your new boyfriend in,” he says, making no effort to make room for her as she approaches. She settles down in front of him regardless, stretching her legs so that they are bracketing his own, leaning her knees against his calves with that kind of easy closeness only the young are capable of. 

 

“He’s all tucked in,” she says, shrugging one shoulder. “I think he thinks we’re together, so he’s a little gun-shy.”

 

The Doctor quirks an eyebrow at her. “Nine hundred years, Rose Tyler, and I’ve never been somebody’s  _ boyfriend  _ before.”

 

“You’re not!” she says quickly, her brows contracting in dismay. “I told him you’re not, that it’s not like that. That we’re not together.”

 

The Doctor thunks his head back against the wall, watching the fairy lights blur across the domed ceiling. “We’re not together?” he echoes. He knows what she means, knows what she’s trying to do, but he’s feeling restless, provocative. Angry. 

 

A long silence forces him to look down his nose at her: she staring at him openly, her mouth open in an expression of comical shock. “ _ No _ ,” she says. “We’re not together, because if we were together, you would be  _ shagging  _ me.”

 

The Doctor’s eyebrows bounce up his forehead, and he resists the laugh that bubbles in his throat. “You humans!” he exclaims, shaking his head. “Take you all through time and space, and you’re complaining about not getting shagged?”   
  


“Not complainin’,” she corrects, and then mutters something under her breath along the lines of,  _ not that I haven’t thought about it _ . “Just stating the facts, Doctor.”

 

“Isn’t that what your new boy is for, then?”

 

Rose’s mouth cocks into a half-smile, and she shrugs, clearly making a concerted effort not to be embarrassed. “And so what if it is?”

 

The Doctor absolves her with a grin. “Remind me to get you all your shots so you’re not catching anything more than a good time, alright?”

 

Rose laughs a little, playing with the hem of her jumper. “Alright. But anyways, that’s not what I came to talk to you about.” She draws in a breath, steeling her posture. “Seems like we’ve had a bit of a bad day, huh?”

 

_ A bad day _ . The Doctor feels another surge of hilarity, but knowing that it trembled on edge of hysteria, quickly smothered it; whatever Rose saw in his eyes instead had her leaning forward to touch his hand.  

 

“Are you alright, Doctor?”

 

No, he thinks, I can’t remember the last time I was alright; no, he thinks, I am murderer and a monster and I didn’t know how far gone I was until today; no, he thinks, I am the only one left; no, he thinks, sometimes I want to die so much it terrifies me; no, he thinks, I realized today that I am in love with a nineteen year old human girl who is going to grow old and die in the time it takes me to even figure out what all this mad torrent of emotions in my hearts mean. “I thought I’d killed you,” he says instead, knowing he should not lie to her in this moment.

 

Rose bites her lip and shifts, nudging his knees apart so that she is kneeling between them. She takes his face in her hands - so warm, a little wet,  _ alive.  _ “You did what you had to do,” she says, and he can see that she means it, he can see that she feels it all the way down to her simple ape DNA. 

 

He wishes that she understood he is not the hero she thinks he is. 

 

“I don’t--” he begins; fails. “I can’t--”

 

“I know,” she says, her thumbs stroking along his cheeks; he doesn’t notice the tear she smears away. “I know that it tears you up inside, I know how alone you are, I know how guilty you must feel. And I know - I know you love me, Doctor. So I  _ know  _ that you wouldn’t have closed that door unless you really, really believed you had to.”

 

Rose is staring at him, her brown eyes gleaming wetly like diamonds, her hot hands on his face. He feels something squeezing his throat, and tries to gulp it down. “Rose,” he croaks, because really, what else can he say?

 

She throws herself forward, into him, so sure he will catch her. He bundles her small warm salty body against him, breathes in her sweat and hormones and cheap perfume. He holds her for long minutes, letting his breath ruffle her hair, memorizing the beats of her heart, rubbing circles over her back. She begins to tremble, and her tremble becomes a sob. He pulls her tighter.

 

“Rose,” he says, forcing himself to speak, “I’m not so good at this, you know. I’m not one of your boyfriends. I don’t always know what to say, or how to - to show you how  _ important _ you are.” He pushes her away from his shoulder then, waits for her to finish smudging her mascara across her tear-stained cheeks before speaking again. “But you are, Rose. You are so important.”

 

She leans forward, bracing her weight against his hands where he is holding her shoulders. She lifts one finger and traces the edges of his mouth very lightly. “To you?” she asks, her voice no more than a breath.

 

“Yes,” the Doctor says, and  for once the words come easily. “Yes, Rose -  _ yes _ .”


	6. The Long Game

They sit in the media room folded together like a pair of socks. Rose is watching a 32nd century drama about a polyamorous lesbian quadrangle raising three children together, when one of the children turns out to be interspecies due to an error in the insemination process. 

 

Rose finds it’s rather more like East Enders then she might have expected.

 

The Doctor is supposedly watching with her, but Rose can tell by the way he keeps huffing softly and shifting his jaw from side to side that he has got a long-winded speech brewing within him, and she has a sharp guess as to what it’s about.

 

When the Doctor clears his throat for the third time in five minutes, Rose rolls her eyes and reaches for the remote to pause the show.

 

“Alright, Doctor,” she says, mostly good-naturedly, “spit it out.”

 

“Spit what out,” he replies instantly, his eyes boring straight ahead. Rose thumps her head back against his shoulder, her legs still draped over his lap. 

 

“Doctor.”

 

His face draws together in a look of exasperation. “Well, if you weren’t always chasing after those boys, Rose, we might actually be able to get something done once in a while without nearly rewriting all of human history.”

 

Rose feels her eyebrows creeping up her forehead, and if the Doctor’s studious attempts to avoid her eye are any indication, her face is reflecting the same feeling incredulous outrage that is flaring in her chest. “ _ Always chasing after boys _ ? And as far as I can remember, Doctor, half the time we’ve nearly derailed the whole of history its because of one of YOUR daft ideas!” Rose jabs him in the chest to emphasize her very honest point; the Doctor gives an exaggerated flinch of pain.

 

“Alright, but you’ve got to admit, your taste in men leaves something to be desired!” He is glowering down at her with considerable force. 

 

Rose thinks he might have seemed intimidating, were his aura of disappointed anger not offset by the fact that she was arranged quite comfortably on his lap, her upper body leaning into him. Rose only laughs. “That taste in men is what got me running into this ship after you, you know!”

 

The Doctor harrumphs, looking away. “Not a man, me,” he snaps. “Time Lord.”

 

“Well, good thing too,” she says, leaning forward so that her head is tucked under his chin. “If you were a man, I might think you were jealous.” He grumbles in a tone of mutinous offense, and Rose enjoys the vibrations of his low voice through his body. With just his jumper on she can feel breadth of his shoulders, the narrowness of his waist; he is a bigger man than Mickey, built strong and spare, not pretty but powerful. Not her type, usually, but Rose thinks that the rugged navy-captain-come-scientist thing might be growing on her. 

 

“I can smell your hormones,” the Doctor says. His tone is so matter-of-fact that it takes Rose a moment to realize what he is saying - she bolts up and away from him, and he blinks at her in mild surprise. 

 

“You can smell my  _ what _ ?”

 

The Doctor blinks again, and his eyes narrow slightly. “Your hormones, Rose. Estrogen and testosterone and oxytocin and all the others. Young woman, you are; they’re fluctuating wildly at the best of times, but just then something set them off, started a process of sexual arousal. Thinking of one of your pretty boys?” Through his explanation he reaches forward and tugs Rose’s arm until she scoots back into her position nestled under his arm, her eyes fixed upon his strange, sarcastic, beloved face.

 

“Oh yeah, Doctor,” Rose replies, nearly laughing, “I come in here and drape myself all over your lap so I can sit and fantasize about my ex-boyfriend.”

 

The Doctor detects her sarcasm easily enough, but a look of slight confusion followed by a look of moderate irritation crosses his face. 

 

“Seriously?” Rose asks, leaning up on her elbows so she can stare at him. 

 

He frowns furiously, staring ahead at the paused telly.

 

“I was thinking about  _ you _ , Doctor.”

 

The look of shock on the Doctor’s face is worth the swooping nervousness in Rose’s stomach; he snaps his head around and gapes at her for a moment, his eyes moving critically over her face to verify that she was not kidding. The corners of his mouth begin to twitch before he flattens his lips into a thin line and tilts his chin up proudly. “Well,” he says calmly, “glad to see you’re finally learning a bit of sense, Rose.”

 

Rose can’t help but laugh, thumping her hand against his chest. He beams with happiness, not looking at her, his silly ears pink. Rose sits forward and presses a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth. “You’re mad,” she says, the words half a breath against his cheek.

 

He tilts his head just so, his unmoving, smiling mouth resting against hers. “Folie a deux,” he murmurs, and reaches up a hand to pull her head back under his chin.

 

Without moving or speaking, the Doctor signals for the telly to come back on - and this time, he watches too.


	7. Interlude II

“I’m sorry, Rose, but it just can’t be done. The atmosphere is highly toxic to humans and it would be too risky to have you in a suit,” the Doctor explains, with apparently infinite patience, for the fourth or fifth time. He is studying the crossword of Jackie’s newspaper with not insignificant interest, apparently stuck on a 12 letter word for ‘arrogantly trying to impress’. 

 

Rose leans into his shoulder, her hot breath blowing in his ear. This always used to annoy her mother but seems to have no effect whatsoever on the Doctor’s superior biology. “We’ve been on so many mad adventures, and a stupid space suit is gonna stop me now?”

 

“Rose!” This is Jackie now, hollering from her bedroom in a tone of exasperation. “Let the poor man have a moment’s peace away from you! Probably sick to death of all your nattering. Keep up at this rate and he’ll never come back for you!”

 

The Rose looks both wounded and outraged at this remark; the Doctor looks up briefly from his crossword to stare at the wall that separates him from Jackie with an unreadable, but definitely unfriendly, expression. “I  _ will  _ be comin’ back. And I wouldn’t go without you if I didn’t have to.” The Doctor says this with a slightly drawn-out tone, as though he thought so absurdly obvious it pained him to state it. He looks at Rose, his brows furrowing down at her. “I understand why you don’t want me to go without you. It’s never easy to be separated from the people that - are special to us. But I haven’t a choice. Important work to be done, even in parts of the universe that lovely little humans such as yourself daren’t venture.” The Doctor rises from the couch, folding the paper over his finger and tucking it under his arm. He grins down at Rose genially, though she does not smile back. 

 

“Will you be back straight away?”

 

“I can’t guarantee that,” he says, cocking a knowing brow her way. “But I’ll do my level best. How long would you like? Two weeks?”

 

“One’ll be fine,” says Rose, throwing a sullen look towards her mother’s bedroom.

 

“One week it is!” he booms, all cheer and excitement. He steps towards the doorway and pauses, looking back at her, teetering as though off-balance. “Well - em -”

 

Rose can’t help but smile now at this display of hapless awkwardness. She peels herself from the sofa and crosses the living room, pulling the Doctor towards her by his jacket lapels. “Doctor.”

 

His brows bounce up his forehead as he peers down his nose at her. “Rose.”

 

“Promise me you’ll keep yourself safe, and get yourself back here?”

 

He lingers for a moment, his eyes moving up and down her face as though she were just the clue he needed to solve his crossword. “I promise,” he says.

 

She rocks onto her toes and presses a kiss to his slightly stubbly cheek. He squeezes her arm, spins around, and disappears out the front door of Jackie’s flat.

 

It is only two days later that Rose is in the kitchen putting the kettle on and she hears the doorknob rattling and a brief, fluent string of curses from a low voice. “Hello?” she calls, hoping her mother had not invited Henry over. “Mickey, that you?”

 

“It’s me.” 

 

Rose turns to find the Doctor standing tall and dark in the doorway, blocking out the light from the hall. It casts strange shadows on his face. “Oh! Doctor! You’re early!” Before Rose can think of a better greeting than this, Jackie emerges from her bedroom and elbows past the Doctor into the kitchen. 

“If he’s staying for dinner - and you better not even  _ think  _ of swanning off with my daughter tonight, you promised me a week - than you’d better pull another pizza out of the freezer, Rose.” Jackie does not dignify either of her guests with so much as an upward glance as she pours herself a cup of tea from the kettle that had just finished heating and hustles back to her bedroom to resume a three hour phone conversation with Beth. 

 

“Well,” says Rose, half laughing, “you mind staying for dinner?”

 

The Doctor is uncharacteristically quiet. Rose can see nothing amiss - he is in just the same jumper and trousers he always is, and he doesn’t look injured or ill - but there is a kind of haziness in his expression she hasn’t seen before. 

 

“You alright, Doctor? If you’d rather we just leave, that’s fine, I’ll just...”

 

The Doctor is slowly shaking his head, a slight smile on his face that doesn’t quite suit him. “Dinner is fine. I like pizza, me. And a bit peckish anyways.” He looks up at her. “You said I was early - how long’s it been?”

 

“Two days.”

 

He nods. 

 

Dinner is served, and after the Doctor puts away four slices of pizza with impressive alacrity - Jackie, wise to his ways, gives him a full pizza to himself - the Doctor’s spirits seem to rise considerably. Jackie spends much of the evening chattering happily about Estate trifles and small dramas, with the Doctor inserting the occasional sarcastic remark or “Ha!” of laughter which is not quite at Jackie’s expense. Rose peppers the Doctor with several questions about his trip which he deftly avoids, and so she settles instead for leaning against his side and enjoying the familiar smell and closeness of him. 

 

“... and anyways, that was the last Lizzie ever saw of him!” Jackie finishes her tale with relish, waving a breadstick meaningfully at her daughter and her alien-in-law. “Not like you, that man,” she continues, poking the bread in the Doctor’s direction. “That one didn’t ever return home to his honey after all his mad adventures.”

 

“Mum!” Rose flushes, shaking her head vigorously. “We’re not like that!” 

 

Jackie, recalling many similar protests throughout Rose’s adolescence in regards to a certain infamous Mr. Jimmy Stone, rolls her eyes. “Oh, right, fine, you’re not shagging, sure. I mean,” Jackie shrugs, considering the Doctor with a clinical eye, “he’s an alien - maybe he can’t shag.” The Doctor’s eyebrows begin creeping up his forehead. “But you love each other, and as a mother, that’s what matters to me.”

 

Rose, cheeks properly flaming now, opens her mouth to protest - 

 

“Very enlightened of you, Jackie.” The Doctor is beaming at her, all sarcasm and rubbery wit. Rose stares at him, but he doesn’t look her way. “If only Lizzie’s baby’s father had been so thoughtful!”

 

“Well--” says Jackie, preparing to go on, but Rose stands abruptly from the table.

 

“That was a great dinner! Really lovely. Thanks so much mum. Anyways, Doctor’s tired, and we should both really get going.”

 

Jackie and the Doctor look at Rose as though she’d just spit up all over herself, but after a moment the Doctor shrugs and rises with her. “Alright then! Pleasant visit, as always, Jackie Tyler. Rose, if you’ve got your things, let’s scoot.”

 

Back in the TARDIS the Doctor is jittery and quick, skipping around the control room like the floor is burning his feet if he stands still for too long. Rose feels a sudden inexplicable weariness settle on her as she watches him. 

 

“Doctor.”

 

He doesn’t slow or stop or show any signs of hearing her for the first few seconds. “Yes?” 

 

“Would you look at me?”

 

The Doctor braces his arms against the control panel and stares into a viewscreen for a long, long moment before he turns his head towards her. His eyes are sharp and pale in the light of the TARDIS, piercing, his mouth a flat line leaning down towards his chin. 

 

“How long were you gone, Doctor?”

 

A heartbeat passes. Two. “Ten years. I think. Give or take.”

 

Rose digests this in silence, refusing to let her shock show on her face.  _ He’s not human,  _ she reminds herself.  _ He’s not mine.  _

 

“I was captured.” Rose feels her body stiffening in anxiety and surprise as the Doctor continues, his voice very light, almost whimsical, and she starts to fidget with the zipper of her jumper. Her pulse is very loud in her ears. “I thought - I came very close to being killed. But I kept thinking of you waiting here in Jackie’s flat for me. ‘I can’t just leave her,’ I thought. ‘She’d never forgive me if I just died here without her.’”

 

Rose laughs sharply, and then between one breath and the next she is crying - not hard, but he can hear it, she knows he can. The Doctor looks away. “I would’ve hunted through the whole universe until I found your sorry arse and slapped you silly,” she says, teeth chattering, hardly intelligible. 

 

The Doctor straightens stiffly, like it’s painful, and takes two long strides until he’s there before her all leather and wool and she is tucked against the cool stretch of his torso. “Hey, now,” he says into the crown of her head, “none of that. I’m back. I won’t leave you again.”

 

“Please don’t,” she says, her words hushed and secret-like as she speaks them into the small hollow at the base of his throat. 


End file.
